As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my new hobby is venturing into the suburban wilderness of Southern California and recording songs on acoustic guitar using my iPhone, in selfie mode.

I usually aim for locations with no visible civilization — no cars driving by, no buildings, no sidewalks. I think a nice backdrop does the song justice, moreso than bedroom walls do. Of course once the recording is done, you can almost always hear the far-off buzz of traffic in the background, along with whatever other noises happen to be going on. This is OK with me, though, as it adds a little bit of “real world” to something that is so often geared specifically for social media. It also seems to turn out pretty damned relaxing to watch.

This was, I think, my third attempt at recording this song. I tried a couple of times before to tack it into the end of another recording, but was always out of juice by then. You’d be surprised how tough it can be to get through a song, even one you know thoroughly, without screwing it up.

Anyway, enjoy.

As I record other songs, they will be posted on the MD YouTube channel.

So the author of MD has a new hobby: going out into the wilderness (or relative wilderness) and recording songs on his acoustic guitar, selfie style.

This was spurred mostly by the thought that when I’m 80, I won’t remember how to play any of the songs I know. It’s doubtful I’ll even remember playing an instrument at all, as I curse “what the hell is that damned thing?” at my old, cracked, half-strung guitar hanging around in the back of the closet behind all of my brown loafers and boxes of Depends.

Now I’m not an exceptional guitarist by any means. But I will say it takes some balls to play live in an environment where people might pass by and overhear you. Because unless you live in deep-woods Montana, and not densely-populated Southern California like I do, you can’t really go anywhere where someone can’t hear you. The best I can hope for is that they think “where is that guitar coming from? Oh well,” and move on.

I do like how the soft background noises of the wind, birds chirping, and light traffic sounds in the distance serve to ground it all in the real world, as opposed to a controlled studio or a bedroom. Anyway, see what you think.

More to come…

By the way, all of them will be posted on the MD YouTube channel as they are recorded.